Sometimes the line between "change for the better" and "staying true to yourself" is a difficult one to navigate. I'm walking that line right now with mixed results.
For the past few months I've gotten some help from a marketing expert. She (and her team of virtual assistants) have helped me integrate all of my marketing activities into a kind of cohesive whole, which has been great.
She's also encouraging me to promote myself more assertively and blog more strategically, which is kind of like trying to convince a housecat to take a bubble bath.
Step One: Marketing consultant gives Cheri (good) suggestions on how to promote herself.
Step Two: Cheri braces all four feet against the edge of the tub and hisses.
Can I just say it? I hate being self-promotional. I hate tweeting about my "secret sauce" or trying to make myself look awesome. It makes me feel like a seven year old girl walking around in high heeled shoes too big for her and waving around one of those long cigarettes from the 1950s.
"I'm faaaabulous dahling. You absolutely must hire me for all your OD consuuuuulting neeeeds...."
The struggle continues. I was sitting here today trying to come up with a blog post about employee behavior problems, and my heart just isn't in it. I don't want to blog on a pre-determined-SEO-Optimized-Keyword-Perfect topic. I want to blog what is in my heart and on my mind. Marketing calendar be damned! I shake my fist at thee!
I like to joke, but there is an important point to be made here.
This whole situation reminds me about how good consulting is about push and pull. I need my marketing guru to push me in the areas where I am weak. (And she does!) And I need to push back when the solutions aren't quite true to who I am. (And I do!) The good answers are found in that tension between improvement and honoring the person being improved.
Push and pull. I'll be thinking about that when my clients do the important work of pushing back on me. :)
Cheri is the owner of Emergence Consulting in Seattle, WA and a very reluctant marketer. She's glad to have help from the owner of Virtual Assist USA.
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